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Trying to conceive

Thinking about getting pregnant? Now's the time to take stock of your health (and your partner's)

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Originally published in Today's Parent October 2003

Simpsons fans will remember the episode where Homer and Marge rekindle their passion. In one scene they recall great lovemaking moments of the past and Homer remembers the day he “knocked up” Marge. “We drank so much that night I thought Bart would be born a dimwit,” he tells Marge. Marge laughs uncomfortably.

Homer may be in denial about Bart’s abilities, but he’s certainly not in the dark about the possible effects of alcohol on the development of a baby. And drinking is only one thing to think about when you begin to plan a pregnancy. There are other habits and lifestyle practices that both you and your partner may want to adjust to enhance your fertility, increase your well-being during pregnancy and make growing a healthy baby more likely. Because we can rarely predict the moment of conception, before pregnancy is the best time to begin making these changes.

Visit Your Doctor Dr. Claire Murphy, a Toronto family physician, strongly encourages women to book a preconception appointment when they are planning a pregnancy. She asks their partners to attend the appointment as well. In this half-hour visit she takes a medical history, provides information and invites the couple to ask questions.

Murphy reviews the genetic history and ethnic background of both partners, asking about incidences of Down’s syndrome, muscular dystrophy, spina bifida, sickle cell anemia and other diseases. From this discussion some couples decide on testing, which can be done before or after conception, to learn if they are carriers of a genetic disease. Eileen Bogris*, the mother of a one-year-old daughter, has known since childhood that she is a carrier of thalassemia. “It is common among people originating from the Mediterranean, making my husband unlikely to be a carrier, but he was tested and we were reassured that he was not a carrier.” If they had both carried the gene, they ran the risk of passing this blood disease to their child, who might then suffer from symptoms such as severe anemia.

A later appointment may include a physical, Pap smear, testing for sexually transmitted diseases, and testing for immunities to rubella and chicken pox, two diseases which may harm the unborn child. “If a woman is not immune to these diseases, we offer her vaccinations. Then she would need to wait three months before getting pregnant,” explains Murphy.

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